My name, in history!
by RobynRedDress
Summary: Hans had heard rumors of monsters hidden away in the African jungles, but no respectable royal occupied his time pursuing these legends. His brothers were deployed to lead glorious battles, crushing waves of rebels under their boots. He was sent to chase a child's bedtime story. AU, Set in the 1900s.


Two horns like a spine upon its boxy muzzle and beady eyes that sink into grey flesh. Ears like an equine lay like a crown upon its head. Sloping withers, a curved back, short haunches. Its thick stomach stands upon four three-toed stumps. The charcoal outlining its form is smudged on the yellow paper.

A black-skinned squat aborigine rubbed his protruding belly, and tapped his knuckles on the paper. "Kiboko. He stamps out forest fires and spits rivers from his mouth." He was dwarfed by a red-haired man, who retrieved the picture from his knotted fingers.

Women wove baskets in front of their huts with burnt rooftops and 11 mm holes in the walls.

The ginger man scribbled _Kiboko is the Kongo term for the White Rhinoceros_ in a leather journal.The humidity hung on the air like a sheet, weaving itself into the fibers of the man's jacket. CAPT. WESTERGAARD was etched onto a gold metal plate that was pinned just above his numerous badges, impeccably arranged and straightened to be symmetrical on his pectorals. A Chamelot-Delvigne Model 1873 was strapped to his hip.

He handed another sketch to the round-bellied man: An open mouth of pink with pointed teeth jutting from a jaw. Yellow eyes on top of its head like a two telescopes, a short head that flows into its long, scaled body. A spiny tail splashing up water.

"Ngandu. He is a man eater." _Ngandu is the Kongo term for the Nile Crocodile._

Hans had heard rumors of monsters hidden away in the African jungles, but no respectable royal occupied his time pursuing these legends. His brothers were deployed to lead glorious battles, crushing waves of rebels under their boots. He was sent to chase a child's bedtime story.

Hans handed the man a third sketch: a long beak, with a skull elongated like a counter-weight. It had a slender neck and body, soaring on thin, veiny wings. _Queztacolatus_ scribbled in the corner.

"That is the Kongomato. He took the chief's daughter, so we had our revenge on the creature."

" _You_ killed it?" Hans raised his eyebrows at a bone-tipped spear leaning on a thatch hut.

"Our spears do not spit thunder like your metal shooters," the man's eyes became shiny "but we have battled Kongomato since Bumba exhaled our land from his lungs."

"Take me there."

Dense foliage creeped at the edges of the sparse settlement. Skinny trees peaked out from the bushes, creating shadows of leaves on the ground. His boots thudded against the moist earth, sinking in slightly with each step. He could feel the air slowly warming from the rising sun. He followed three men of the village deeper into the forest, and dutifully followed three of the men from the village, acutely aware of rustling branches, or leaves that felt like reptilian skin brushing against their arm. Hans heard the echoes of praise from his King as they travelled further and further into the dense forest, his failure at Arendelle a distant memory.

They approached a clearing in the dense tropical forest, and one of the village men pointed with an ashy finger towards a tree that had been knocked from its roots, which tore vines and other plants apart into an opening. Hans felt the hair on his arms and neck raise as he slowly approached the mouth in the foliage. He vaguely wondered if the dark shadows behind the trees were village men waiting in ambush.

The only thing visible was the creature's torso pushing out from the underbrush, and its black blood stained the dark, loamy earth, turning the fern leaves covering it black and sticky like oil. The air smelled like rotten food and spilled gasoline, but they were nowhere near any roads or airways. Hans ran his hands across its smooth, metallic skin, and traced a finger over the slashes in its body, where the natives claimed they had killed it with their spears. White flecks stuck to his fingertips, exposing shiny hard flesh. His eyes followed its curving body up towards where he expected a great, man-eating beak. There was a propeller there.


End file.
